Apple vs. marketing on 'best price'

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Many traders are baffled by the strength of Apple Inc. in today's market, as it appears to be the only technology stock acting like a tech stock should. There is excitement and strength about its offerings, and people are buying them.

It's not much of a mystery. Apple is the only tech company that is aggressively marketing and advertising its products.

Try and recall the last time you saw an ad for a computer, phone or tech company. The last one I recall was the "There's an app for that" iPhone ad from Apple.
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The only other commercials I immediately recall are the "Here is some money for finding a cheap laptop that happens to be a PC" spots. These are advertisements that promote the fact that a PC laptop is cheaper than a Mac.

Apple has no qualms about blasting the vulnerability of the PC to viruses and other weaknesses. Microsoft is stuck in the best-price rut.

What a shock! Groundbreaking!

The ads are from Microsoft Corp.
MSFT, +1.57%
though they do not seem to push any Microsoft product in any meaningful way. I suppose they are generically about Windows, but the only benefit pushed by the ad is the low price of the computer.

Years ago, when I first visited the computer firms in Taiwan, the litany then was "We do not need to spend money on advertising because we have the best price." It still is. There seems to be a cultural bias about "wasting" money on advertising when all you need to be a success is have the "best price."

Exactly how this concept got around at Microsoft, resulting in the "best price" advertising, is beyond me. Such marketing is amateurish, to say the least, unless you want to tell people you are having a "going out of business" sale.

First of all, what are the benefits of the Windows-based PC over the Mac besides price? You'd never know based on these ads.

If anyone is looking at a Mac vs. a PC laptop in the real world side by side, they'd probably go with the Mac despite any limitations. Many of the limitations, namely reduced I/O and nonstandard connectors, are obfuscated on the Mac.

On the surface, the Mac is slicker overall with much better designs, prettier displays and snappy software.

My son has a MacBook Pro and I was playing with it. How do you hook it to a big monitor? Does it have a normal DVI output port? Of course not; you need to spend $30 for an adapter that you will probably lose.

This sort of thing is easy to mock, along with all the other dongles and screwball connectors used by the Mac. I mean, there is a magnetic power cable that must cost a fortune to replace. The ones for PCs are standard.

But instead of attacking this sort of nonsense as plain ridiculous, Microsoft decides to go after the penny-pinchers who'd never buy a Mac in a million years anyway.

The irony to this is that the executives at Microsoft itself are fairly snide, sarcastic and cynical. Bill Gates used to make biting comments about the competition. He recently brushed off the recent Google Chrome OS as "just Linux."

Steve Ballmer is out-and-out insulting, often humorously, when he goes on the attack, Why is none of this reflected in Microsoft's advertising? It's good, funny stuff!

Apple has no qualms about blasting the vulnerability of the PC to viruses and other weaknesses. Microsoft is stuck in the best-price rut.

Where is the Microsoft personality?

When a new series of Mac vs. PC ads shows up, people actually want to see the spots! They have personality. (Note to advertisers worried about the TiVo bypass: The solution is to make ads people want to watch. )

Anyway, what Microsoft needs to do is add some real personality and stick it to Apple with some genuine commentary about the flaws nobody talks about. The public can see the "best price" part of the equation for themselves.

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